Introduction
Working with patients involves several challenges, which highlights the need for ethics. Hospitals are incredibly busy providing medical services, often with limited resources to ensure the necessary care to people. At the same time, some segments of the population do not have sufficient rights protection to get help – they cannot allow insurance, do not have documents, or even have housing.
Such situations create complex ethical dilemmas because medical specialists must make choices that benefit all patients but may not have enough resources. The practice of patient dumping is an example of a controversial situation that attracts public attention and presents a severe problem.
Main Body
When dealing with the homeless, hospitals face significant challenges, such as registering difficulties and limited resources that prevent such patients from being left in the hospital for long periods. These issues cause the problem of patient dumping, a practice where providers do not ensure proper treatment to homeless patients and unlawfully send them to other facilities or the streets against individuals’ will (Kline, 2019).
One of these cases was caught on camera by a passerby near a Baltimore hospital (Pegues, 2018). A man witnessed how security took a homeless woman outside in hospital clothes and left her at a bus stop while the weather was cold (Pegues, 2018). This case struck those who saw the recording and illustrated the problems existing in the health care system.
Patient dumping violates ethics and laws on the provision of health care. Considering the American Nurses Association (ANA, 2015) Code of Ethics, dumping violates the first provisions prescribing respect for human dignity. The problem also harms the third, eighth, and ninth provisions, as dumping demonstrates a failure to protect patients’ rights, especially autonomy, and ensure social justice. Medical professionals should proceed from the interests of patients in their actions and prevent unethical situations that may threaten them (ANA, 2015).
Moreover, following The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, if an emergency need is identified, hospitals must ensure the appropriate care or send the patient to another provider regardless of the patient’s ability to pay (Abraham, 2018). Consequently, patient dumping is a significant issue that needs to be addressed.
Nurse leaders can be part of the solution to the problem. Notably, they should never support and tolerate dumping at their workplace. Upon learning of such a case, they must protect patients’ rights and ensure that employees responsible for dumping are punished. While providing places for all patients is challenging, it is critical to ensure proper discharge or transition by involving teamwork (Contrado, 2019). Therefore, ongoing patient advocacy efforts and team training are essential in solving the problem.
Conclusion
Thus, the considered patient dumping case that happened near Baltimore Hospital violates the law and the ANA Code of Ethics. This situation demonstrates the inability of hospitals that practice dumping to protect and respect patients’ rights. The problem contributes to social injustice and, therefore, requires action to address it. Nurse leaders should educate their staff in ethics and patient protection, contributing to the prevention of dumping.
References
Abraham, T. (2018). Patient dumping is a symptom of health system woes. Healthcare Dive. Web.
American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Silver Spring.
Contrado, T. (2019). Patient dumping. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 119(3), 10. Web.
Kline, N. (2019). When deservingness policies converge: US immigration enforcement, health reform, and patient dumping. Anthropology & Medicine, 26(3), 280–295. Web.
Pegues, J. (2018). The man captured a video of a “patient dumping” outside a Baltimore hospital. CBS News. Web.